I stopped chopping an onion when the
phone rang. A young man at the Airport Hilton was vomiting.
For a hotel doctor, a difficult call refers not
to an illness but to traffic conditions. It was four o’clock, so I would drive
eight miles both ways during the freeway rush hour, returning hungry and with
no dinner prepared. I delay some visits but not for acutely miserable symptoms.
Before I left, the phone rang again. I yearned to
hear that it was another airport hotel, but the guest was downtown, fifteen
miles in the opposite direction. Worse, she had a migraine, so I couldn’t
delay.
Delivering medical care is sometimes challenging.
Always challenging and the mark of a seasoned hotel doctor is the ability to
remain serene in gridlock.
Certain rules apply. Unless lanes are closed,
leaving the freeway for city streets is a bad idea. Another rule is that
blocking a lane at any hour stops traffic cold. Steady movement, however slow,
is simply a sign of congestion.
“I wonder if there’s an accident,” I thought a dozen
times after several minutes of immobility, but I never saw one. So much for
rules.
Two housecalls which normally take two hours took
four and a half, but I maintained my serenity, sucking on the hard candy I bring
along to dull my hunger and listening to a novel on my CD.
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